Whenever a significant honors show nears, there’s always a clamor for the addition of new categories to recognize unsung work and fill the spirits of fans dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications successfully include many game types, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles released every year lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated in any category that year
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often compact experiences, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as most popular titles worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games for the title of highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers are working at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait 35 years.
